'Beyond Yesterday's Failed Dreams'

I watch a lot of Science Channel, Discovery, History, Nat Geo, and the like.

Recently our cable company added a feature I've been wishing for - the date a program first aired. Not all programs are displaying the date, but the majority are.

"Hey, 'Volcano's: Sleeping Dragons' is coming on at eight. I wonder if I've seen that?"

I've watched many hours of volcano-related programming, and usually spout factoids before the program I'm watching can spout them. Same goes for documentaries on space, oceans, history, animals, plants, and so on. (This isn't to say I'm an expert on anything any more than I can sing all the words to a song while the song is not playing - I need the context to prompt me.)

The original air date is a great way to tell if I've seen something - if it originally aired in 2004, you can pretty well bet I've seen it, or hated the narrator enough to pass. Either way, not something to bother with.

So - the original air date is useful information, but also demonstrates how dated some of the programming is. A volcano special from 2004 is probably acceptable to air, as not that much has changed in vulcanism in 5 years. Sure, we're using GPS more to track deformations, satellite imaging is more frequent, more sensitive gas sensors on the ground, etc - but a volcano is still a volcano.

What annoys me are 'Beyond Tomorrow' episodes from 2005 that are still airing today - this is a show about bleeding edge technology that's right around the corner. But there's something decidedly frustrating about watching a segment host say "...and these personal jet-packs will be available to the general public by early 2007".

I realize the networks are working on new programs all the time, and the need to air 24 hours a day means there will be many re-runs. In the case of Beyond Tomorrow, it would be a better use of the old footage to edit it down into a study of 'Where Are They Now?', revisit the same labs to get an update, and offer an analysis of what the result of the research and development was, for better or worse.